| Jannis Kounellis
 
 
Jannis Kounellis was born in Pireo, Athens, in Greece, in 1936, but he lives and works in Rome.
He moved to Italy in 1956 and settled in Rome. Since the '60s, Kounellis's paintings, sculptures, settings, installations and performances (with their poor materials, as the artist has been a member of the Arte Povera movement from his beginnings) have been the proof of his cultural and ethical commitment and have modified the archaic representation models on canvas, giving the works of art an infinite size and creating a new fruition process of these "open works”, making spectators get involved. Such work has broken down the barriers among the multiple historical identities and has defined new creative requirements. Kounellis's work presents a spatial interaction between images and objects to lead spectators to a unique and unmistakable vision, an image as vision.

Other than his participation in numerous national and international exhibitions with the Arte Povera group, it's worth mentioning, among Kounellis's most important recent presentations, his participation in the XXV Venice Biennial in 1972 as well as in the retrospective presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago in 1986. In 1996, in Naples, Kounellis hang pieces of furniture from the vaulting of Piazza Plebiscito's portico. In 2002, he presented a great plate labyrinth at Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome. In 2003, under the patronage of the United Nations Department of Public Information and the city of Venice, he exhibited a series of works created for the Armenian Monastery on San Lazzaro island in Venice for the Art of the word project. In 2004, Kounellis presented nine large installations at the National Library of Sarajevo and exhibited his latest work at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens.

His relationship with Galleria Fumagalli began in 2004, when his great works—created for that exhibition—were presented by the gallery. The publication of an important book on his work is being prepared, cured by Annamaria Maggi and in cooperation with Galleria Christian Stein of Milan.